TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2011 (1) TMI 449
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....t assessment is barred by limitation. Consequently, revenue has filed this appeal against the majority decision of the Tribunal wherein the Accountant Member dissented and held that the assessment completed was well within time. We have heard the senior counsel appearing for the appellant and Adv. Sri V.V. Asokan appearing for the respondent assessee. 2. The facts borne out by the record which led to the controversy are the following. A search was conducted under section 132 of the Income-tax Act in the premises of the respondent assessee, which is a partnership firm, on various dates commencing from 30-4-1996 to 6-5-1996. During the search, the department recovered several records and the materials relating to undisclosed income of the ....
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....as depatched by the department to the assessee on 30-5-1997 did not contain signature of the Assessing Officer and so much so, the assessee while filing the appeal against the assessment contended before the Tribunal that the assessment order is invalid for the reason that the first copy received was not signed and the second copy of the assessment order which contained the signature of the Assessing Officer despatched to the assessee on 2-6-1997 is barred by limitation: During hearing of the appeal by the two Bench member, the Judicial Member took the view that the first copy of the assessment order have not been signed by the Assessing Officer within the period of limitation and therefore the assessment is invalid. On the other hand, the ....
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....cribed period, though the actual service of the order may be beyond that period". 4. He also cited the decision of the Supreme Court in Kalyan Kumar Ray v. CIT [1991] 191 ITR 634 wherein Supreme Court has noted that the statute does not contemplate service of assessment order and what is requires is service of notice of demand signed by the Assessing Officer. The counsel appearing for the respondent assessee also relied on the same judgments and contended that as held by the Supreme Court in the judgment referred above, the assessment in this case also should be treated as completed beyond the period of limitation. 5. After hearing both sides and after going through the orders of the two members and of the President of the Tribunal, w....
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....ssment by the Commissioner of Income-tax which is the requirement of section 158BG was also stated by the Assessing Officer in the assessment order. The first question now to be considered is whether the despatch of an unsigned copy of the assessment order along with signed copy of notice of demand invalidates the assessment. The second question is whether the evidence on record prove beyond doubt the claim of the department that the assessment in this case was completed within the period of limitation, i.e., on 27-5-1997 as claimed by the department, which is within the period of limitation provided under section 158BE of the Act. We notice that the assessment is a very elaborate order and it contains sixty pages. The assessee does not den....
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....es and one of the copies is sent to the assessee along with copy of demand notice. It may so happen that the despatch section without noticing the omission would have sent an extra copy of assessment order which was not signed. However, the same does not mean that the original assessment is not signed by the Assessing Officer with reference to which only he prepares the notice of demand which was admittedly signed and despatched to the assessee within the period of limitation. The additional feature that supports the case of the department is that the draft assessment prepared and finalised by the Assessing Officer was approved by the Commissioner of Income-tax after giving a hearing to the assessee on 23-5-1997 and so much so the assessee ....
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....g to the intent and purpose of this Act." 6. In our view the whole purpose of the above section is not to defeat on technicalities the object of the statute that is to assess and collect the tax legitimately due under the Act. As already noticed this is a case where elaborate evidence is collected in the course of search and the processing of the document took several months before completion of the block assessment. In our view the Accountant Member rightly held that on hyper technicality a proper assessment completed strictly observing the provisions of the Act should not be held invalid. The evidence on record in our view establish beyond doubt that a draft assessment was approved by the Commissioner of Income-tax under section 158BG ....